OK, so I’m being a bit dramatic but the sea air is getting to me. BitTorrent – the home of illegal movie downloading – is going legal. President and co-founder Ashwin Navin told me that it was his childhood dream to work at Apple, which is pretty ironic considering he’s now heading a company that is very likely to offer them some major competition.
BitTorrent has already signed a deal to distribute legal, licenced Warner Brothers content on its imminent legal service. Navin said he’s also in talks with music, phone and movie companies about more deals and expects those wrapped up by the end of the year when the legal product launches in the US.
It expects to roll out to the UK, China and Japan next year. BitTorrent now employs 32 people and attracted $9 million in venture funding last year to prepare it for its transcendence to the world of legal distribution. In its current status, around 90 percent of the content on BitTorrent is illegal, although PBS and some other not-for-profit organisations rely on the downloads tool as a major – and very effective – distribution system. There will be plenty of changes to improve the user experience and the new service will no longer be open source.
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